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Friday, 17 February 2017

A big thank you to Jen and Valerie for the photography tips, I have a decent, if aging a bit, Sony compact digital and I will definitely take the time to explore more of the white balance & snow settings. I hope neither of you are going to be too disappointed in my efforts in this post, I experimented a bit, but realised I have a lot to learn and it's going to take time!

So, this is another Style Arc pattern I have been interested in for a while and finally got around to trying, the Nina cardigan, a waterfall style cardigan with a draped front, waist seam and a fitted back. I do find some waterfall styles a bit shapeless on me as they add volume everywhere so I wanted to try this version.

It is incredibly quick to make on a serger. I got a bit confused by the instructions referring to a hipband, but there aren't many pieces so it was easy to figure out -this is the lower back piece which wraps round to the front and I can't come up with a better name for it so hipband it is!

I love how this turned out, it is exactly like the illustration shows. There are a couple of things I would (will!) change next time:

lengthen the upper bodice slightly, the waist hits a bit high on me, only a problem if I want to wear a belt with it

I didn't like that the front and hem edges are just serge finished, I turned and stitched mine, but I'd like to explore self facing the front neck band entirely

Difficult to see, but the front band is sewn on last and you need to pivot where the waist seam and hipband meet. This is what gives it the nice drape at the front while still keeping some waist definition.

You can see here that the waist seam hits above the natural waistline where the belt sits.

I made this version in a ponte knit which is nothing like the stretch crepe per the magazine, but a similar weight to the fabric I used in my previous version so I knew it would work. My original post has more construction detail that I won't repeat here. Once again I left off the zip and swapped the facings for bindings.

Changes I made this time were to sew up the slit and I scooped the front neckline a bit lower. I also swapped out the sleeves. The original is a one piece cap sleeve, the pattern piece is sort of rugby ball shaped and it does tend to stick out, which is OK, but I wanted something different this time around. I just searched for cap sleeve on the BurdaStyle website and picked 01/2012 - 113, a 2 piece self lined cap sleeve.

The original sticky-out cap sleeve

My replacement sleeve

These dress form photos show the colour quite accurately, one that keeps popping up here!

As usual I had real problems getting the lighting right when it came to taking photos on me and I couldn't figure out why they came out so differently to the dress form ones.

I came to the conclusion that as I'm using a self timer and have the camera on an automatic setting, the settings are determined by my empty frame and then don't apply once I've dashed into position (so far I've looked in vain for a compatible remote which would fix things I think). I've no idea if this is true, but I tried again with a manual setting and despite a couple of shots like the ones below I did sort of get somewhere in that the lighting is better although the focus is off a bit.

I really blame my photography for slowing up my blogging, but I'm getting a better idea of what to look for when it's time to get a new camera. If anyone has any recommendations or tips though please do share them. I know people really like to see the clothes on a real life body and I have to admit that it is really useful for me to to see things a bit more objectively.